SQL Server 2016 delivers breakthrough mission-critical capabilities with in-memory performance and operational analytics built-in. Comprehensive security features like new Always Encrypted technology helps protect your data at rest and in motion, and a world class high availability and disaster recovery solution adds new enhancements to AlwaysOn technology.

Organizations will gain deeper insights into all of their data with new capabilities that go beyond business intelligence to perform advanced analytics directly within their database and present rich visualizations for business insights on any device.

You can also gain the benefits of hyper-scale cloud with new hybrid scenarios enabled by new Stretch Database technology that lets you dynamically stretch your warm and cold transactional data to Microsoft Azure in a secured way so your data is always at hand for queries, no matter the size. In addition, SQL Server 2016 delivers a complete database platform for hybrid cloud, enabling you to easily build, deploy and manage solutions that span on-premises and cloud.

Benefits

Enhanced in-memory performance provide up to 30x faster transactions, more than 100x faster queries than disk based relational databases and real-time operational analytics

New Always Encrypted technology helps protect your data at rest and in motion, on-premises and in the cloud, with master keys sitting with the application, without application changes

SQL Server 2016 SP2 contains fixes to issues that have been reported through our customer feedback platforms and Hotfix solutions provided in SQL Server 2016 Cumulative Update 2 through Cumulative Update 8. Service Pack 2 also includes supportability and scalability enhancements, and addresses issues that have been reported through the Windows Error Reporting system.

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Installation Guidelines

Note: You must have administrative rights on the computer to install SQL Server 2016.

Note: Selecting Download will download the SQL Server 2016 installer (SQLServer2016-SSEI-Eval.exe). After running the installer, it will provide you the options to perform an immediate ‘Basic’ installation of the SQL Engine, a full ‘Custom’ installation, or to download the media only. If you select to download media only versus doing an installation, two media download formats are available to the folder of your choice:

SQL Server 2016 with SP2 DVD (ISO) Image: You can use the ISO image to Mount and/or burn your own DVD. After the SQL Server installer downloads SQLServer2016SP2-FullSlipstream-x64-<language>.iso:

Right click on SQLServer2016SP2-FullSlipstream-x64-<language>.iso and select “Mount”. Locate and execute setup.exe on the mounted device to begin the installation.

Using your DVD-burning software, select the options to burn a DVD from an .ISO image. After burning the DVD, locate and double-click Setup.exe on the DVD to begin the installation.